Saturday, January 19, 2008

Avery Calls Out Team

According to John Dellapina at The Blueshirts Blog, Sean Avery called out the team for insufficient desire and effort after the game...

"Sean Avery pretty much called out the team for insufficient desire and effort after the game (check tomorrow’s paper for the quotes).

I don’t know where I stand on that. On the one hand, it’s hard to argue with Avery’s assessment that the Rangers’ approach of late hasn’t come close to the relentless drive they mounted to make the playoffs last February-April. On the other hand, so many prominent Rangers are so wracked with fear of making game-blowing mistakes right now, that the damage-minimizing first two periods they played yesterday was hardly damning. Rather, it was the kind of stuff that should have been the foundation for a rousing win once Jagr and Avery scored early in the third to snatch a 3-2 lead."

I was actually able to find one of the quotes in the Yahoo! Sports game recap...

"I saw urgency and intensity in the last 25 games of last year," said Avery, acquired by the Rangers last February. "That's urgency and intensity. Not right now, not how we're playing. I wish it were different, but it's not."

...its about time someone stood up and said something. Give Avery the Captain's 'C' right now. This is something Renney should have said about three weeks ago. Great job Sean.

...and why are so many prominent Rangers so wracked with fear of making game blowing mistakes? Its not like Renney's going to do anything about it if they did. What has Renney done to this team to put them in this mindset?

1 comment:

I'm glad to hear someone finally speak up. I didn't take anything positive out of yesterday's game. They got only one point against a team who is depleted with injuries. This team has too much talent to be losing to inferior teams. I thought Lundqvist was solid yesterday which is good sign. I don't think he's completely back yet.

Malik was awful but Rozsival wasn't much better yesterday. He did have an assist but he let 2 guys get behind him when the Rangers were short-handed.